Fight Back Fridays July 10th

Welcome to another Fight Back Friday, everyone! Today we’re bringing together a collection of recipes, tips, anecdotes, and testimonies from members of the Real Food Revolution.

Who are they? Why, they’re the Food Renegades. You know who you are — lovers of SOLE (Sustainable, Organic, Local, and Ethical) food, traditional food, primal food, REAL food, the list goes on. I believe that by joining together, our influence can grow, and we can change the way America (and the industrialized world) eats!

So, let’s have some fun.

If you want to participate but aren’t sure how, please read these guidelines for how Fight Back Fridays will work.

Please be courteous and use your BEST blog carnival manners! In the very least, that means remember the two most important things you can do:

Share a relevant post from your blog with us using the Mr. Linky Widget below (don’t just link to your blog’s home page).

In your post, be sure to link back to this post (not the Food Renegade home page) so that your readers can have access to all the information and encouragement we’ll be sharing.

Please also feel free to make use of any of the banners below by saving the image to your desktop then uploading it to your own server. (You don’t have to use them, but they’re there for you!)

If you don’t have a blog but are interested in joining the conversation, you can leave your comments below!

My own contribution to today’s carnival is a post I think many of us can relate to called Are You Nutrient Starved? I can’t wait to see what you all share.

Fight Back Friday Banners

PLEASE NOTE: The smaller banners are also available as badges/buttons for your sites over on my sidebar so that you can sport your Real Food Lovin’ Pride and inspire others to join us in the Real Food Revolution. Just copy the code and paste it into your sidebar. (Again, you don’t have to use them to participate in the carnival.)

About the Author

Kristen Michaelis is a passionate advocate for REAL FOOD -- food that's sustainable, organic, local, and traditionally-prepared according to the wisdom of our ancestors. While she adores hats & happy skirts, nothing inspires her quite like geeking out over nutrition & sustainable agriculture. Nutrition educator & author extraordinaire, she's also a rebel with a cause who enjoys playing in the rain, a good bottle of Caol Ila scotch, curling up with a page-turning book, sunbathing on her hammock, and watching her three children grow into young adults.

That is quite a bargain! The farmer I buy naturally raised chickens from sells his for about $3.99/lb. Not cheap, but TOTALLY worth it. Did he sell them to you on the cheap because of the size? Were they just as tender as the smaller chickens – cause sometimes, those bigger hens get tougher. Still wonderful though, don’t those naturally raised chickens have so much more flavor? And good for you for using every bit of it!

Oh, one of the turkeys we raised was like 27 pounds. We took a picture of it (in the roaster that we had to borrow from the lunchroom at the elementary school) next to a regular oh, 12 lb. turkey from the store in another roaster. It was amazing! I don’t really remember, I was in my teens, but I’ll bet we had turkey in our dinners forever!

This Friday’s contribution to Fight Back Friday is a comparison of two important concepts in the sustainable food space: Slow Food and Pro Food. Hope you enjoy and add your voice to the discussion by commenting on the blog post (or the post below: “Pro Food Is…”).

Earlier today, Kimberly Hartke pointed everyone to a compelling video of Kim Alexander speaking against NAIS at a USDA listening session in Austin.

Kim Alexander, his wife Gloria and their 8 children operate Alexander Family Farms in Del Valle, about 15 minutes from where I live- I am fortunate enough to eat the food that they produce almost every week.

All of that will change, however if NAIS is allowed to move forward.

NAIS, you see, was designed by a consortium of Big Ag players including Cargill Meat Solutions, Monsanto and Schering-Plough more than a decade ago, and finally won the USDA

Thanks for your fun post! I love that you get your meat from a farmer-factory farms are horrific places. I think if people bought their meat by where it came from instead of by the price people would make different choices. I really need to see if I can find a local source for farm-raised meat. Thanks again!

This week’s post is about losing our traditional husbandry practices in favor of industrial meats that we have to cook to death for safety, and includes three recipes from different countries for raw, grassfed beef.

My great-grandmother was a professional cook who made AMAZING oatmeal cookies. The great news – they’re a total breeze to make! This week I’ve got an easy step-by-step process to make these wonderful cookies.

This week I’m discussing the issues with eating habits, and how our whole culture is trapped inside of one big eating disorder. Many people think of bulimia and anorexia when the term “eating disorder” is mentioned, but the fact is, most of the citizens in this country and other developed countries have a chronic eating disorder because they don’t eat real food and they are sick because of it. Thanks for Fight Back Fridays, Kristen!

Hi, Kristen! This week, my post is a quick run down of the reasons why we think it is important to shop local, whether the need is food or other household items. I’d love to get others’ input on this. Why do you shop local? Thanks!

I have made that taco seasoning mix and it is great! Would you believe that I have never had polenta. I need to try it out. I am a true southern girl and grew up on grits, so I never really gave polenta a try. Your dish looks great!

I’m new to this, so forgive the omission of the subject. My linked post is a recipe for Wheat Berry Salad. Wheat berries are an obvious but not often used way to eat whole grain wheat and are so yummy!

This post is an interview with Tracy Singleton from the Birchwood Cafe in Minneapolis, a shining star in the local food movement for 14 years and counting. In the interview, Tracy describes how she got into the local, sustainable food business and what motivates her to keep on keeping on.

Hello Food Renegade friends, I discovered this lovely Fight Back Friday event last week and decided to write a post today ‘specially for today’s “fight”. Take a peek at my trip to the farmers market and my discovery of a local grass fed elk farmer and his delightfully delicious wild rice elk brats.

I’m a bariatric post-op with significant fat malabsorption, so everything pertaining to fat stored vitamins (A, D, E, and K) is of vital importance in my world. I also have a child with an orthopedic disease (I have one, too) and it’s mind boggling the improvements we’ve both realized since making informed alterations to our Vitamin D (and interrelated and accompanying vitamins) intake. It’s such an important topic! The general public really DOES need to be educated on it!

Super informative article, Vin. I was infuriated when I realized just how many of us are walking around deficient in Vitamin D. It’s so lacking in our food supply thanks to industrialization, and it’s practically impossible for us to synthesize it from the sun like we should because of our indoor lives behind glass windows and frequent showers.

Taking fermented cod liver oil (high in Vitamin D & A) has been a great boon to my personal health.

Dina – Yes, the Vitamin D Council is great! I’ve learned a lot from their work. I’m happy to hear that vitamin D has helped to improve your quality of life!

Kristen – I am infuriated by a lot of things that result from industrialization! However, I think even the most conventional minded doctors are embracing the potential of vitamin D and awareness is spreading. Despite this, it would still be nicer to see people getting more of their vitamin D from nature rather than a pill.

So sorry to hear about your grandfather. It sounds like the two of you had a great relationship. Thank you for sharing that. Food can be such a great part of families. It’s a shame too many people grab to go boxes and don’t cook together or eat together like they used to. Your recipe sounds really good. Thank you for sharing it on Friday Foodie Fix.